Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus vs. 2013 MacBook Air – Specs tussle

Several days ago Samsung held an event where they announced several new products, such as a couple of new phones, a camera, a tablet and two new Ultrabooks. One of those devices was the Samsung ATIV Book 9 Plus, and it’s clear going on looks and specs that its main target is the 2013 MacBook Air.

If you are looking for a budget version of the new ATIV Book 9, then there is the Lite model, but this will come with stripped down specs, and so will struggle to compete with the refreshed MacBook Air.

It’s clear that when you study the specs of both these machines they have their pros and cons, such as the ATIV Book 9 Plus offering a 3200 x 1800 pixel resolution, compared to 1440 x 900 for the Air. It’s clear that the Quad High Definition of the former is more comparable to the MacBook Pro with Retina display, although the Samsung Ultrabook still has the edge.

Both the ATIV Book 9 Plus and the 2013 MacBook Air come with a choice of Intel Haswell i5 and i7 processors, with both Samsung and Apple claiming battery life times of 12 hours. When it comes to graphics the Air has the edge with Intel HD Graphics 5000, compared to HD 4400 graphics for the Book 9 Plus.

Both devices supports up to 8GB or RAM, although Apple offers customers the chance to upgrade to 512 GB of flash storage, compared to 256 from Samsung.

It’s rather clear that both devices are evenly matched in some areas, whereas each benefit in some areas compared to others. However, the biggest concern will be the Samsung Ativ Book 9 Plus price, as this has yet to be announced, although we have to wonder if it will be around the same as the $1,099.00 price tag for the base 13-inch 2013 MacBook Air?